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“A hard-on to ruin you, wreck you, destroy you, only to brag about it later to that son of a bitch. Only to see his face drain of all color when I told him what I did to his little sister that he loved so much. Because guess what, his pretty little sister is all grown up now and she loves me. And so she’d let me make her fall apart and put her back together, if I wanted. However I wanted. She’d let me do things to her that he could only imagine in his head in the dead of the night, when the whole world is asleep and he’s awake, jerking himself off to them.”
His eyes look so far away, almost glazed over, as he keeps going, “Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t. Why I didn’t do all the things that I wanted to do. What stopped me. But then it doesn’t matter, does it? Because I did end up doing it. I did end up hurting you that night. All so I could hurt him. So I could have my revenge.”
He did.
He’s absolutely right.
Even though he somehow managed not to do those things to me — and yes, I would’ve let him, all in the name of love — he did end up hurting me anyway. He did end up ruining me and wrecking me.
And destroying me just like he wanted.
So the fact that I can see — for the first time ever — something very similar to remorse on his face, something very similar to self-directed anger, shouldn’t matter to me.
It shouldn’t matter at all.
“And so that’s why it was never me,” he says, breaking my chaotic thoughts, now focused on me. “That’s why you waited and waited by the phone, jumped at every little beep, thinking that it was me but it wasn’t. Because the way I felt about you, the way I wanted to use you to stroke my ego and the way it was so hard to stop myself, I didn’t think I could handle going after you. I didn’t think you could handle me going after you. Because look what happened when I did. When for the first time ever I said fuck it and chased you down. I showed up at your dorm room in the middle of the night and left you broken and crying in my wake. Because I don’t live in the pages of your romance novels, do I? I’m not your swoon-y, cupcake-eating hero. I am the real life. Made of thunder and thorns. And you’re made of candies and cream. And the only way I knew how to keep you safe from me and my twisted head was to keep you away.”
Did he say safe?
That he was keeping me… safe.
From himself.
Safe.
That was the first thing that I’d felt when I was around him. I’d felt safe. Turns out that it wasn’t true in the end, but the fact that he kept me at a distance in his twisted attempt to keep me safe is… I don’t know what it is except mind-blowing.
Not the first time I’ve used that word tonight.
But that’s what it is.
The reason he never initiated any contact with me was because he was… protecting me. That’s what it means, doesn’t it?
He was protecting me in a way that maybe a predator protects its prey. A lion knows he’s dangerous. He imagines sinking his teeth into the lamb’s flesh, tearing her open and eating her heart out. He imagines destroying her in a million ways because that’s what he does, that’s who he is.
So in order to protect her, he goes against his own instinct, and tries to run her off.
He tries to spare her life.
And if the lamb were smart, she’d take his advice and run away.
But I’m not a lamb, am I?
I’m a firecracker. A firefly.
His Firefly.
And he’s always been my Thorn. My Beautiful Thorn.
And that’s why here I am, all broken and bent, my wings trashed. Lovelorn and alone.
“I think… I’m —”
“But that’s not important,” he cuts me off, his face looking determined. “What happened or who am I or what I did. What’s important is what I do now.”
“What?”
He studies me for a second, my face, my throat, stopping at the freckle on the side of my neck, before moving down to my body that I know I’m holding very tightly now. All my muscles bunched up and alert.
Because whatever he is talking about is giving me a bad feeling.
A very bad feeling.
Then in a flash, I’m proven right when he gets so close to me that the next breath I take is laced with cinnamon.
And God, God, he captures the next beat of my heart in his palm.
Because he wraps his fingers around my throat, his thumb digging into that freckle on the side of my neck.
